Hemp: the answer for whatever ails you

Center-pivot sprinklers spread Ogallala aquifer water over a crop near Holyoke, Colo. July 2014/Allen Best

Hemp enthusiasts have a tendency to wax happily about hemp being the solution to just about everything. Michael Bowman certainly presents it that way.

“I hate to oversell something, but if you give me a problem, you can probably find a way to solve it with hemp,” he said at a meeting in Golden, Colo., on Oct. 30.

Bowman is a farmer turned activist. He’s in his 50s, with brown hair graying slightly at the temples. He speaks with confidence and skill, and he has had many opportunities to do so in the last decade as a founding board member of 25X’25, a group that advocates a more sustainable path for rural America.